The Best April Fools Video Game Jokes to Play on Your Friends

Ah, the beginning of spring. The sun is shining, flowers are blooming, and you’re thinking of how to fool your friends on April 1st.

Here’s a little video game inspiration to add some variety to your list.

Strategically-placed in-game pranks

Sometimes all you need is a multiplayer online game, a few in-game props, and a little evilness to pull off an April Fool’s joke.

Exhibit A: Horse and Cliff

More annoying than hilarious (unless you’re the one pulling the prank.) If you can get your horse to perform a back kick, hang out by a cliff or bridge. Rear up as passersby stroll along and watch them fall to their last save point. Check out this example from AGE OF CONAN:

Exhibit B: Dance Party

There’s nothing that says STAY AWAY FROM MY BASE like a well-choreographed dance party to get between the enemy and their goal. You will need:

1) Strategy: when and where do you want to distract the enemy?

2) A catchy pop beat to stream in game

3) Patient friends with good controller skills – the more friends, the better

4) Time to work out the tricky details

Here are a couple of Skyrim guards dancing “Gangnam Style”. Granted, there was a lot of coding that went into this. But inspiration, people. Fabulous inspiration.

The Classic Gaming Prank: Scream Shock Maze

The Internet has made it easy for us to instantly connect and share special moments with others. Make a video of your little kid blowing out their birthday candles. Propose to your sweetie with a love song written and performed by you – and shared among the masses on the web. Build a maze game and scare the snot out of your friend.

It’s special moments like those that bring us together.

But seriously, being victim of one surprise-scare video on YouTube in 2008 has made me suspicious of Internet videos for life. If you’ve got a good friend who doesn’t mind a good scare, share this one with them.

The Legend of Zelda Movie

The best April Fool’s jokes are those that 1) target long-shot desires and pretend to make them a reality, and 2) are backed up with some serious planning and content.

IGN’s THE LEGEND OF ZELDA movie trailer hits the sweet spot for an infamous April Fool’s gamer win.

The popular gaming lifestyle publication hired professional actors, writers, and video producers to pull off something we’ve been waiting for since 1986. They even went as far as designing a movie poster for bonus realism points.

There’s so much work that went into this, it can’t possibly be a joke, right? April Fools!

“I’d like a cheese pizza topped with a little madness, please.”

If you don’t have a movie production studio on hand to prank your friends, just turn to a piece of simpler technology: the telephone. Oh, and some very cleverly timed video game dialogue.

A persistent Skyrim fan calls several pizza establishments using a variety of recorded quotes from a fantastically outlandish “Daedric Prince of Madness”.

What results are several calls: a few confused, a few entertained, and several downright frustrated. (Pull this prank at your own risk!)

Heads will roll with The WiiHelm

ThinkGeek is notorious for their deceptively real April Fool’s jokes. In fact, one year, the fictional Star Wars Tauntaun Sleeping Bag joke disappointed so many that ThinkGeek actually produced it and is now for sale. (Who said April Fool’s isn’t a great time to test demand?)

Here’s one gag gift that didn’t make it into the limelight: the WiiHelm. It’s a helmet that connects with your Wii remote so you don’t have to risk damaging your flat-screen TV with flailing arms, or worse yet, get an arm cramp.

Via ThinkGeek:

The Nintendo Wii has surely revolutionized gaming as we know it. Rabid fanboys everywhere are now flailing their arms in delight as they wield the Wiimote as a tennis racket, baseball bat or sword. Problem is the average gaming geek is just not up to the strenuous task of vigorous arm movement for longer than 10 minutes. This makes those extended play sessions a thing of the past… and who wants to beef up at the gym just to play video games on your couch? We sure don’t.

Now if you can put of these together and gift it to a friend on April Fools – that’s YouTube gold.

What are you going to do for April Fool’s? We promise not to spoil the surprise.